


twelve-oh-one

by gortysproject



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Alcoholism, F/F, F/M, It Will Probably Get A Little Dark, Knowing the plot of Lesser Gods is not necessary I have taken SO many liberties with this, Lesser Gods AU, M/M, Panic Attacks, Rachel Appears Briefly Too, References Of Homophobia And Transphobia, The End of the World, The Ethics Surrounding Bodily Rights, Withdrawal Symptoms, trans Jacobi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-11 06:41:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11708937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gortysproject/pseuds/gortysproject
Summary: This is the era of taking missed opportunities and toeing the line of anarchy without falling over into chaos. This is the era of daredevils, risk-takers and radicals. This is the era nobody will be around to remember. And Warren Kepler, try as he might not to think about the situation he’s found himself in, is spending this precious time at the end of mankind… babysitting.[lesser gods au]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> HENLO let's see if i abandon this one halfway through shall we. this is an au of the podcast LESSER GODS, and since i am still only HALFWAY THROUGH IT, you might want to take my interpretation of the storyline with a ladle of salt. good luck

It’s the end of the world.

That’s been the headline for a while, at least. It’s been a fairly slow end. Mankind is not suffering a meteorite hitting the surface of the planet, nor an outbreak of zombies, nor even the rising tides of climate change – mankind is churning to a halt. A natural, calculated, peaceful halt.

A few decades back, a virus infected the entirety of humanity, person by person, continent by continent. It rendered every person infected completely infertile. As a consequence, no natural-born child has been born in a _long_ time, and the youngest naturally-produced people in the world are over fifty years old. Trials have been run, over and over again, to try and produce fertile children outside of the womb, handpicking the perfect genetics and correcting anything in their DNA that would prevent them from being able to have children.

It never works. No test tube baby has ever been fertile.

So – the end of the world. Some people try to avoid believing in it. Some people choose to worship these unnatural children as endless tests are performed on them, deciding that faith and faith alone will save them from the end. Some people have already given up, and chosen to believe their last years as the human race should be treated exactly as they are: their last.

This is the era of taking missed opportunities and toeing the line of anarchy without falling over into chaos. This is the era of daredevils, risk-takers and radicals. This is the era nobody will be around to remember.

And Warren Kepler, try as he might not to think about the situation he’s found himself in, is spending this precious time at the end of mankind… babysitting.

He didn’t believe Rachel when she told him where he was going. “That’s what you get,” she said, in that irritatingly peppy tone, “for being a _complete_ waste of time, money and resources.”

“You can’t do this,” he hissed in return.

She raised an eyebrow, and the next words rolled off her tongue so smoothly, he knows now she’d spent the entire meeting _dying_ to say them. “ _I_ can’t. But _Cutter_ can.”

So here he is. Sitting in a meeting room, foot tapping steadily on the sterile white floor, pretending to read a file he’s already read twenty times over. Daniel Jacobi fidgets to his right. Alana Maxwell skims through her own file again on his left. Eventually, Warren lays a hand on Daniel’s knee to prevent it from bouncing so much.

Daniel relaxes, minutely, under the touch. Dr Hilbert, equally silent on the other side of the room, raises an eyebrow but wisely says nothing.

Renée walks in first, closely followed by Hera. Their third, Doug, is nowhere to be seen. Both girls look appropriately startled to see Warren and his friends; they probably meet someone new once every year. Three at once must be a _lot_ to process.

“Who are you?” Renée demands, and Warren sighs silently. He can tell she’s going to be as difficult to deal with as the file in his hand suggested.

Still, he stands up from his chair, crossing the room to shake her hand. She takes it – partly curious, partly irritated – and gives it a brief shake. He then offers the same to Hera. She doesn’t blink once when she takes his hand.

“My name,” he greets as warmly as he can, “is Warren Kepler. Daniel Jacobi. Alana Maxwell.” He gestures to them as he says their names. “We’re the handlers you must’ve been told were coming.”

“You’re younger than we thought you’d be,” Renée replies honestly, and Warren can’t say he’s surprised. “Are you from a previous generation?”

A pause. “Yes,” he answers. Hera’s eyes seem to stray to fix on Daniel, and he notices the moment she recognises him. She whispers something to Renée. Renée’s eyes also flicker to Daniel. It’s brief, but not brief enough that Warren doesn’t notice.

Daniel’s knee starts bouncing again. Warren sighs.

“Where’s the third one? Doug?”

“Oversleeping, I don’t doubt,” Dr Hilbert replies monotonously. Something in his tone indicates that that’s the end of the conversation. Warren dislikes it.

He turns to him. “Couldn’t you go _get_ him?” he asks, trying not to let his voice slip into something too icy. “You _are_ in charge of them, Doctor. Perhaps you should start _acting_ like it.”

“I-I can get him,” Hera stammers, and Warren remembers something about a speech impediment in her file.

He shakes his head. “No need. Dr Hilbert just volunteered.”

It’s clear neither Renée nor Hera quite understand what’s going on, but Warren stays silent as Hilbert gets to his feet obediently and leaves the room to find Doug. Warren silently invites Renée and Hera to sit down in the chairs provided, and they stick together, frowning on the other side of the meeting room.

Eventually, Renée says whatever question must have been bouncing around her skull for the last few minutes. “Where are Dominik and Kate?” Before Warren can reply, she continues, “You said Doug was the third one. Why do you only need three of us here?”

He hesitates. While he _wants_ to be surprised that Dr Hilbert failed to warn them about the upcoming days and the changes they’d be experiencing through them, he can only feel a familiar disappointment. Hilbert was never particularly good at meeting the agency’s expectations.

“I only need three of you here because there _are_ only three of you here,” he tells her, ripping the band-aid off as easily as possible. “Dominik and Kate left last night.”

“What?” Renée hisses, as Hera blinks owlishly.

Warren sits back down. “The middle of the night, so I’m told, was the easiest time to move them. There wouldn’t be any reporters, there wouldn’t be any security threats, and there wouldn’t be any… _complications_. I’m sorry you weren’t told about this before, but presumably the removal of the two assets required the utmost secrecy, which was deemed more important than your ability to say –”

“You can’t _do_ this!” Renée shouts at him, standing up angrily.

“…Goodbye,” Warren finishes drily. Then he adds, “I didn’t do it. These are orders from above. The program wasn’t working the way it was, and so changes had to be made to move forward.”

At that moment, Hilbert walks in, and Doug trails in miserably behind him. He looks pale, with a pair of sunglasses balanced haphazardly on his face. _Hungover_. Renée turns to him the moment he enters.

“Kate and Dominik are _gone_ ,” she says, voice trembling, and Doug winces at the sharpness of her tone before the words properly sink in.

“What do you mean, gone.” It’s not a question. It’s a statement of disbelief.

Warren clears his throat. “Doug,” he greets. “You’d know exactly what I mean if you were up on time.”

“Who’re you?” Doug asks, actually pulling off the sunglasses to look at the newcomers. Warren catches a glimpse of the heavy bags under his eyes.

“You’d know that, too.” Warren’s pristine smile doesn’t falter as he watches what should have been an easy first meeting fall apart around him, but his patience is being held together by the last delicate strings of a terribly frayed rope. Before any of them can speak again, he motions Doug to sit down, and stands up.

Silence hangs in the air for a moment. Doug pushes his sunglasses back onto his face. All three of them wait expectantly for answers that Warren should not be the one delivering, but he delivers nonetheless, because he’s a good soldier like that. “Last night, Kate and Dominik were sent to your partner facility, hosting the other trial subjects in your generation –”

“They don’t,” Hilbert starts, and hesitates. “They don’t know about partner facility.”

“Oh, for the love of –” Warren stops himself. “What _do_ they know, Doctor? What _have_ you told them?”

Hilbert meets his gaze evenly. “Everything I was told to.”

Warren rubs a hand over his face. “Okay. Okay, let’s start from the beginning. Your names are Renée, Hera and Doug. You’ve spent the last eighteen years in this facility with Kate and Dominik. You are from a generation of ten subjects, split into two groups of five. The other group go by the names Isabel, Samuel, Mason, Kuan and Victoire. You are humanity’s last hope at revitalising the population.”

He pauses. This is where it gets difficult, but luckily, none of the subjects – not even Renée – feel the need to speak up about this. They all stare at him, eyes wide, lips parted.

“Kate and Dominik have been moved,” he continues, “to the other group in your partner facility. Overall, they are proving much more successful in fertility rates than your group, and as the most successful in your group, Kate and Dominik have been relocated to increase their chances of conception.”

With a glance to Daniel and Alana, Warren swallows, cementing his own fate in his next words. “Daniel, Alana and I are from a previous – _the_ previous generation. While the majority of our generation – a much larger one than yours, as I’m sure you’re aware – are still undergoing treatment, we have been sent here to take care of you. Now that you’re eighteen, you’re free to roam the city, and we are your handlers. Any questions you have about upcoming treatments should be directed to us, since we’ve already experienced everything you’re about to go through in the coming years. There are other things to discuss, too, but you’ve just been given a lot of information to process. The rest can wait. Any questions?”

The same uncomfortable silence hovers in the room.

“Is that Daniel as in…” Doug trails off. They all know what he’s trying to find the words to ask.

“Yes, this is Daniel as in Daniel Jacobi,” Warren answers tightly. “I am Warren as in Warren Kepler, and this is Alana as in Alana Maxwell. Any _productive_ questions?”

Renée speaks up. “When the hell are Dominik and Kate coming back?”

Warren presses his tongue against the back of his teeth and reminds himself that it isn’t her fault she’s an incredibly annoying, demanding _brat_ of a teenager. _She’s eighteen_ , his brain corrects him, and he ignores it. “We don’t know,” he replies honestly. “It’s unlikely this move will be permanent, if that helps.”

“Who are our...” Hera doesn’t know how to say this nicely. “Who is assigned to—to who?”

 _Finally_ , someone is letting him actually begin this meeting. “Hera, you will be handled by Alana. Renée, you will be handled by me. Doug…” His lips twist irritably, recalling the clearly hungover state of the subject in front of him. “You clearly need a handler more than the other two. Daniel.”

Doug looks mildly uncomfortable about this. Daniel pretends he doesn’t feel exactly the same.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’ve been reading up on the old news stories that circulated in this specific city,” he tells him, and Daniel adjusts himself to rest his head in Warren’s lap, now. Warren’s fingers start absently combing through his hair again. “We were painted as traitors. Alana’s story was much, much smaller. These people have likely forgotten her name. You and I, on the other hand…”
> 
> Daniel finishes his sentence for him morosely. “We’re unforgettable.”
> 
> Warren hums. “We are. But you already knew that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ayyyyy i'm still going with this. i promise there will be a storyline at some point but at this rate it's looking to be more ch4 that that'll arrive

No matter what Warren does, Daniel won’t lift his head from the sofa cushion. Warren settles, after a moment, sitting beside him and running his fingers through Daniel’s messy hair. They’ve been here before. He’ll sit up soon enough.

“Is this about Doug’s reaction?” Warren asks, almost amused. Daniel makes a half-hearted groaning sound in response. “Is this about leaving everyone else behind at the facility?” Another half-hearted groan. “Or is it about you losing Alana’s attention now that she has a new toy to play with?”

“I haven’t lost her attention,” Daniel snaps, voice muffled. He pushes himself up onto his forearms, and Warren looks down on him, hand stilling in his hair.

“I’ve been reading up on the old news stories that circulated in this specific city,” he tells him, and Daniel adjusts himself to rest his head in Warren’s lap, now. Warren’s fingers start absently combing through his hair again. “We were painted as traitors. Alana’s story was much, much smaller. These people have likely forgotten her name. You and I, on the other hand…”

Daniel finishes his sentence for him morosely. “We’re unforgettable.”

Warren hums. “We are. But you already knew that.” He hesitates. “Doug doesn’t seem like a bad person. A reckless one, sure. A borderline alcoholic if his evening activities don’t go unchecked. But all he knows about you is the propaganda fed to him. Maybe if you _explained_ –”

“I don’t like explaining it.”

“Neither do I.” He pulls his hand from Daniel’s hair. His voice is overly patronising with the next words. “Sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to, Daniel. That _has_ been the motto of our entire lives. It’s why we’re here.”

The slight tilt of Daniel’s head seems to suggest he’s looking for Warren to return to petting him, but Warren refuses to rise to the bait. Instead, his hand brushes over Daniel’s shoulder. “Go introduce yourself to Doug properly,” he tells him. “Gain his trust. You’ll need it by the time tomorrow comes.”

“You think he’ll trust me by tomorrow?”

“Yes. He’s been exposed to a handful of people his entire life and all of them are allowing you to share a home with him.” Warren nudges Daniel, who obediently sits up. “If he won’t trust you by the end of the night, he doesn’t trust anyone here.”

“What about Renée?” Daniel asks, pushing his own hand through his misshapen locks to somewhat neaten them. “She seems about as cuddly as a cactus.”

With a chuckle, Warren straightens up, replying, “Make it a poisonous one and I’ll consider it. I’m sure it won’t be _too_ difficult to get her to listen to me. Trust is another thing altogether, but… we’ll see.”

“Why do we need it by tomorrow?”

Warren hesitates. “More change is coming,” he says. “I’d tell you more, but…”

“Right,” Daniel sighs. “It’s need to know. And _I don’t need to know,_ ” he parrots, before Warren can finish the sentence himself.

Leaning in briefly, Warren presses his lips to Daniel’s, careful, precise. Daniel leans into it, pushing forward further even when Warren pulls away. His laughter is quiet, but he presses his thumb to Daniel’s lower lip, before moving his hand to cradle his face. “Later,” he murmurs, and it’s worth it to see the light in Daniel’s eyes. “For now, go talk to Doug. It’s what you’re here for.”

 

* * *

 

“How long have you been here?”

“My whole life.”

“You’re eighteen, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m twenty-five.”

“I-I know.”

“You know?” That makes Maxwell sit up.

She’s been draped across Hera’s bed for the last twenty minutes, now, trying to find topics of conversation and failing miserably. Hera is awkward, like her. Hera prefers the quiet, like her. Hera doesn’t particularly like hanging out with people, like her. Hera is most likely autistic but has never been diagnosed professionally, like her.

Hera is quick to look away when Maxwell glances over at her interestedly. “I mean,” she starts, “I know who—who _you_ are. I’ve read a lot about the trials your generation went—went through. What – _some_ of your generation went through.”

And there it is. “You remember me?”

“Yes,” she replies, honest. “But Doug and Renée probably don’t. They only remember your friends.”

Alana crosses her legs on the bed, watching Hera carefully. She doesn’t particularly want to ask the next question but she knows she has to – her curiosity would drive her to ask it either way. “What do you think?” she asks, casual. “About the whole… subject.”

Hera’s eyes briefly flicker up to meet hers, before resting on a spot behind her head. “I don’t think you did any—anything wrong. Daniel had the right to come out – you all did. Even though you’re the ones who are sup—supposed to _save mankind_.”

“So are you,” Alana replies, eyes alight with humour. A weight has lifted off her chest, now, being open and honest with Hera and receiving… a good response. It’s unusual. It’s unprecedented.

“But none of us are – well. None of us would…” Hera hesitates. “I don’t _think_ they’re gay.”

Alana snorts. “It would be funny if they were.”

“I’m not sure about _funny_ ,” Hera replies, but she seems to be easing into the conversation somewhat. “Inconvenient, maybe.”

Sighing, Alana lays back on the bed. The journey here was a long one and she’s desperately trying to pretend she isn’t tired, but she doesn’t think she’s felt sheets this soft ever before. It’s a difficult move to pull off. “You heard what Kepler said,” she says. “We’re the – _you’re_ the rejects. Apparently, you’re all equally infertile anyway.”

“You don’t know that.” Hera sounds slightly defensive, but Alana understands. It’s guilt. “If they knew that for certain, they’d shut down the program entirely. There’s still hope that one of us could actually conceive successfully.”

“Do you believe in hope, Hera?” Alana asks. It’s a genuine question.

Hera is quiet for an uncomfortably long time. “Hope is stupid,” she decides eventually, “but it’s the only thing stopping the world from entering _complete_ chaos.”

Alana likes that. She thinks she should put it on a t-shirt someday.

 

* * *

 

Daniel pushes the door open without knocking, holding a glass of water he shouldn’t legally have. Doug is laying on the bed, face-down, not too dissimilar to how Warren found Daniel himself laying only twenty, thirty minutes before. He pretends not to notice that parallel between them.

At the sound of the door opening, Doug twitches, lifting his head up tiredly.

“Hey,” Daniel says, and while Doug looks like he’s going to tell him to leave, he lifts up the glass of water and gestures to it. “I brought a peace offering.”

He watches the hesitation in Doug’s eyes, the way the uncertainty flits across his features in a cascade of distrust, before what looks to be a pounding headache makes his mind up for him. He sits up, swings his legs over the edge of the bed, and reaches out for the water. Daniel walks over to him.

Only, just as he reaches him, he lifts the water out of Doug’s reach – a feat that can only be achieved while Doug is sat on the bed, as Daniel has the sneaking suspicion Doug’s at _least_ half a foot taller than him. Not quite as tall as Warren, but definitely getting there.

Doug makes a noise of protest, reaching up to swipe at the glass, but Daniel silently lifts it higher still. “You can have this when you answer my questions.”

He receives a well-deserved glare in return. “Is that water?” Doug asks, because he has to ask, because the curiosity itches at his skin. “Actual, real water?”

“It sure is,” Daniel replies, and takes a sip from the glass. Doug looks like his heart’s about to break. “First question. How often do you go out drinking?”

Doug lowers his gaze then. _Interesting. He’s ashamed_. “Almost every night,” he mutters, and Daniel can at least be glad that the boy’s been trained to tell the truth.

“How long have you been doing that for?”

“Just over a year.” Doug’s heartbreak has been replaced with sullenness, the kind Daniel hasn’t had to deal with since he himself was a teenager. He takes another sip of water while he processes this.

“Okay,” he replies slowly. “Thoughts on going cold turkey?”

Doug’s eyes snap back up to him. “You can’t do that.”

“I can’t make you,” Daniel replies, not bothering to mask how much he’s enjoying this. “But this water is _so nice_. And it’s all yours if you just… agree to go sober. Completely sober.”

Daniel isn’t Warren. He doesn’t have the same hypnotic voice and mesmerising features to entice Doug in. He’s barely even been in charge of this type of contact, before – manipulating people to get them to do what he wants them to do. But Doug is wrapped up in this offer nonetheless, and Daniel thinks he must’ve learned a thing or two from Warren along the way.

He briefly considers telling Warren as much to seek a reward from him when Doug nods, muttering _yes, fine, whatever, I’ll stop with the drinking,_ and almost snatches the glass from Daniel’s hand when he lowers it enough.

A smirk twists Daniel’s lips. “Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“Why do you even care?” Doug asks, when the glass is empty and he forgot to savour the small supply he was given. “What’s it matter to you guys that I sober up?”

“It matters to the project, idiot,” Daniel replies, not cruelly, just factually, dropping down beside him on the bed. “Filling yourself with poison every night isn’t exactly helping your chances of helping to make a healthy kid. Hilbert thinks that might actually be a contributing factor to your continued failure to match up successfully with Kate.”

Doug glares at him again, and Daniel returns the stare evenly. Eventually, Doug replies, “So you want me to get better at the whole Adam and Eve Build-A-Baby.”

“It’s what you’re here for,” Daniel replies effortlessly. “Maybe you should start acting like it.”

“What, like _you_ did?” Doug bites back, sarcastic, and Daniel’s blood runs cold. He hears Kepler’s voice in the back of his mind. _Talk about it. Explain it. Doug doesn’t seem like a bad person_.

“Sure, like I did, ’cause it’s not like the entire goddamn country knows I screwed that up,” he replies. His voice is light. There’s an edge to it that neither he nor Doug comments on. “Sleep off that headache,” he tells him. “Maybe when you get up, we can figure out how to turn your dumpster fire of a life into something _vaguely_ media-worthy.”

“Wait,” Doug starts, regret already tingeing his voice – but the one thing Daniel hates more than this unending scrutiny he gets from every stranger he meets is _pity_ , and he’s on his feet, leaving the room before his brain can even catch up to what he’s doing. He leaves Doug behind, looking just as lost and confused as he had that morning.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We’re not kids,” Renée snaps, seemingly forgetting she was giving him the silent treatment.
> 
> “You’re not,” Warren agrees. “So maybe you should start acting like it, draw a line under whatever _tantrum_ you’re having, and open the door.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a little bit of backstory in this one. just as a warning, the tags / rating have been updated for stuff that's coming up in the next chapter!

“Renée,” Warren starts, leaning against the door. There’s no reply. “I know you’re in there. You might as well open the door.”

He watches a shadow move at the bottom of the door, well aware that Renée is only standing on the other side of it, and if he concentrates he swears he can even hear her breathing. There’s still no reply, though, and he glares daggers at the wall as he talks again.

Voice light, friendly, and not at all matching the dead-eyed expression on his face, he continues, “I know you’re upset about Dominik leaving. You’re allowed to be. But I didn’t do that. I don’t actually know anything about Dominik – never even met the kid.”

“We’re not kids,” Renée snaps, seemingly forgetting she was giving him the silent treatment. It’s fascinating; both Renée and Hera seem so adult and mature in some aspects – they’re both well-read, both good in conversation, both clearly intelligent – and yet they have the street skills of infants. He supposes that’s why he was transferred here. It would be difficult to develop street skills when you rarely even make it out to the street.

“You’re not,” Warren agrees. “So maybe you should start acting like it, draw a line under whatever _tantrum_ you’re having, and open the door.”

She opens the door. He tries not to laugh at her complete incompetence as a negotiator, and remains decidedly straight-faced. “It wasn’t a tantrum,” she hisses. “My – two of the only _four_ friends I’ve ever had were just _taken_ from me.”

“They were taken from Doug and Hera, too,” Warren replies. “How do you think they’re getting on?”

Renée hesitates. “I don’t…”

“I know you don’t know.” Warren gestures, a silent question – _can I come in?_

After a moment, she steps aside, and he walks through.

Renée’s bedroom, just like Hera’s, Doug’s, and what used to be Kate’s and Dominik’s, is massive. A queen-size bed in the centre, he sees the wall of books, _real_ books, _paper_ books, the doorway to the bathroom, the wardrobe big enough to walk inside, and the desk tucked away in the corner, more books piled on top of it with endless sheets of paper surrounding them. This girl is living a life of luxury and she’s using it to _sulk_.

_She doesn’t know what the rest of the world lives like_ , he reminds himself. Then again, if anyone were going to be considered celebrities in this new age, she and her final-generation friends would be it. They stand at public events, like royalty, and they can barely leave the house without a journalist or five cornering them. Everywhere they go, a security team follows.

It makes Warren wonder just how many lengths Doug goes to in order to get drunk every night. He makes a mental note to make Daniel get those answers for him later; he’s not only curious, but also eager to plug up a security leak.

This isn’t his job. His job is to follow Renée around like an overprotective dog. Rachel was clear on that. But if nobody else is doing it, and if Renée is insistent on spending her days in her bedroom, sulking, then there’s little else he _can_ do with his time that would be more productive.

“Nice place you’ve got here,” he tells her, the tone amused, but she clearly doesn’t understand (or doesn’t _want_ to understand) the joke. Arms crossing, annoyed, she glares at him from her position by the door. He walks further inside.

“Why are you here?” she asks.

“In general?” Warren clarifies. “Or right now?”

Renée hesitates, again, and then pushes the door closed to walk back into the room herself. “Both.”

“In _general_ , President Cutter sent us here to take care of you. You’re old enough to leave, and we can’t keep you cooped up in this facility forever. I’m your… chaperone.” He pretends not to hate the sound of his own job description.

“Why _you_?” she presses. “You said the rest of your generation was still being tested. But you three aren’t.”

He holds her gaze levelly. “You’re not about to tell me that with an intellectual capacity like yours, and the clear interest in politics this reading list is showing,” and with that, he gestures to the books on the desk, all of which pertain to political climates from the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, “that you can’t figure it out yourself?”

Renée looks awkward. “I didn’t find out much about your case,” she tells him. “I mean – everyone knew, to an extent, what happened, with Daniel Jacobi and the disagreements between him and President Cutter and you standing up for him and –”

“I know the story,” Warren replies patiently. His skin crawls. “I was there.”

“Right.” She looks directly at him, now. “Are you really traitors?”

“Is that how the media branded us?” he asks, interested. She nods. “No. We’re not traitors. We asked President Cutter for a favour, and he agreed. That’s all there is to it. And now… we work for him, to pay it off.”

Renée frowns. “You don’t pay off favours. That’s the point of a favour.”

“You don’t know President Cutter,” Warren replies amicably. “Besides, I’m not certain this entire thing didn’t actually work out to his advantage. We were three kids in a program of a _hundred_. He now has three personal…” _Slaves_. “Assistants.”

“What actually happened?” she asks, quickly, the words escaping her before she can rethink them. She looks suitably embarrassed by this, but Warren averts his eyes to pull out the chair from under her desk.

He sits. “It’s not a particularly exciting story,” he warns her. “I’ve got _far_ more interesting ones.”

“I want to know,” she responds. “You’re living here – Jacobi’s living here – we have the right to know.”

_You don’t have the right to anything_ , he thinks, but brings up a charming smile. “Daniel was brought up, alongside Alana, as one of the program’s… girls. He realised he wasn’t a girl relatively early on – about twelve, thirteen years old? And by the time he reached sixteen and trials were set to start, he protested, asking for gender recognition that the agency wouldn’t allow him.” He hesitates. “Daniel and I didn’t know each other very well at the time, aside from the fact that we’d spent our whole lives in each other’s indirect company, but he and Alana were best friends.”

Renée drops onto the bed, facing him, unblinking.

“Laws surrounding sexuality and gender identity haven’t been contested in a long, long time. Society moved on from those petty squabbles over a century ago. But when it came to the children who had been manufactured for one purpose – and that purpose was to procreate, as you know – ethical dilemmas began to rise. Did Daniel’s right to express his gender overcome his duty to the human race to help keep it alive? Then, after, but not _long_ after, the same question turned to me. Not with gender, just with… sexuality.”

“They tore you apart,” Renée says. “Everything about being selfish, about…”

“I know,” Warren replies calmly. “But we won the case. Besides, Hilbert – he was in charge of _our_ generation, too, a few years ago – pointed out that a hundred children were created. In a test group that big, a handful of them were always going to be… unusable.”

Renée stares at him. “Hilbert fought your case?”

“No,” Warren corrects her, “Hilbert didn’t _personally attack me_ for my decision. There’s a difference. Either way, Alana joined our gang, as small as it was, later on. We can’t have been the only ones that felt that way in the entire group, but everyone else either didn’t have the guts to say anything or didn’t want to let the public down.”

“Huh.” Renée sits up a little straighter. “And now you’re working off the debt you owe to Cutter, for…”

Warren doesn’t have to finish that sentence, so he doesn’t. It hangs in the air, both of them knowing what she’s leaving unsaid. _For being born wrong_. Still, she doesn’t seem to be actively disliking him for it. If anything, she seems to be acting ever so slightly warmer. It’s a small mercy.

“The President isn’t a bad man,” he tells her, eventually. “He was elected because the people trust him to pull off a very, _very_ difficult task. And he _is_ trying to pull it off. He just wants to keep humanity from dying out.” A wry smile curves the corner of his lips. “You can’t blame him for that, can you?”

 

* * *

 

Daniel’s room is not as impressive as Doug’s. For some reason, Warren is being moved into Dominik’s old room – it is a better room, after all, and only down the hall from Renée – but Kate’s room remains empty.

Daniel wanted to ask Doug about Kate. They were close. They were a possibly-maybe-something couple. Nobody will tell him anything more about that, but he supposes he hasn’t earned it. Alana is still hanging out with Hera, and they seem to be clicking like two peas in a pod, and Warren is doubtlessly off somewhere convincing Renée to sign her soul over with his smooth talk. And Daniel is useless, as usual.

At least, that’s what he assumes, until there’s a knock at his door. He opens it, and Doug stands on the other side, sheepish. “I, uh,” he starts, and then doesn’t know where to go from there. _Great. Even your moping time is getting interrupted by this idiot_. “I’m sorry about earlier,” Doug finishes.

“Oh,” Daniel replies, eloquently.

“I just – you guys weren’t – Kate was gone, and my head really hurt, and you were pulling that dumb stunt with the water, and it’s not your fault she’s gone but I…” He hesitates. “I’m gonna miss her.”

Daniel navigates carefully around his next words. “How close were you two?”

“Freaking _close_ ,” Doug sighs, and pushes a hand through his hair. Wordlessly, he glances into the room, and Daniel steps aside to let him in. “I had two solid coping mechanisms for living in this place, and one just got shipped off to a place I didn’t know existed until this morning, and the other I just sold to a glass of water.”

“Hey,” Daniel tries, painfully aware of his inability to comfort people but giving it a try nonetheless. “You’re gonna see Kate again at _some_ point. Never gonna see the alcohol again, though, so I hope last night was a memorable one.”

Doug huffs a laugh, but there’s no real humour behind it. “Funny,” he replies, voice hollow. “I don’t actually remember a goddamn thing.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s an unfortunate first impression for them to have of us,” Warren agrees. “But we can work with it. This doesn’t have to be a prison sentence, you know. With the right attitude, it could be…”
> 
> Daniel’s eyes flicker to meet his. “Don’t,” he says, but there’s a tiny curve of a smile where he knows Warren is teasing him.
> 
> “A vacation!” Warren finishes, sarcastically upbeat, and Daniel snorts quietly into his pasta.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't look at me, i wrote like 4 sentences of smut in this and i'm crying physically with shame as i upload it

They have dinner together, all six of them. Hilbert’s absence isn’t a surprise – he’d be happier spending more time with his experiments than with real people, and if this stilted, awkward conversation is what comes of real people, then none of them can particularly blame him.

Alana and Hera start muttering to each other at the end of the table, strangely animated, about what the others think might be computing. It’s been a particular interest of Hera’s for a long time, Renée and Doug are both aware. Warren and Daniel know there’s little else Alana would rather talk about, and all four of them silently decide that this subject/chaperone pairing is eerily on point.

At some point, Renée and Doug fall into quiet conversation, too. Warren can’t tell if this is good or not; he’s aware his conversation with Renée ended relatively positively, but he can’t necessarily say the same for Daniel. Due to them being sat side by side, though, Warren enters into the new tradition of private conversations at the dinner table, murmuring to Daniel, “How was it?”

“Mixed bag,” Daniel replies quietly, eyes on his plate. “I don’t think he hates me. Just bad luck that we arrived at the same time as the other two left.”

“It’s an unfortunate first impression for them to have of us,” Warren agrees. “But we can work with it. This doesn’t have to be a prison sentence, you know. With the right attitude, it could be…”

Daniel’s eyes flicker to meet his. “Don’t,” he says, but there’s a tiny curve of a smile where he knows Warren is teasing him.

“A vacation!” Warren finishes, sarcastically upbeat, and Daniel snorts quietly into his pasta.

He means to ask why Kate’s room is staying empty when they pass it, later, but Warren distracts him too quickly and thoroughly before he can. Dominik’s old room is only the next one over, and Warren invites Daniel into it, seemingly courteous to any outsider. Daniel joins him.

Within minutes, he’s stretched out on the bed, worrying his lower lip between his teeth as he stifles noises that threaten to bubble up and out of him, Warren’s lips skimming over his skin, _lower, lower, lower_. These are the moments that make everything they’ve been through to be together worth it; this is the only language he wants to learn, in the twisting of fingers and the sharp exhales of moans that can’t be _too_ loud –

He bucks his hips up, trying to press Warren’s face to the only place he really wants his mouth to be, and Warren responds by pinning his hips down against the softest bedsheets he’s ever touched and licking into him, hungry, reverent, _desperate_. Daniel can’t help but whimper. Fingers thread their way into Warren’s hair, and Warren smiles against him, moving to press one finger, two fingers, _three_ fingers inside him.

Spine arching, Daniel feels his toes curl as he gives way to the pleasure mounting inside him, drowning him. He can’t breathe. He can’t think. All he knows, as the fingers inside him are replaced with something bigger, as his moans are muffled by kisses, as his nails scrabble for purchase in the sheets beneath him and the expanse of skin above him, is that this is an experience he’d never trade for something as undeserving as the human race.

Come morning, his throat is littered in bites, his thighs ache, and he takes time to admire the welts his nails left on the broad expanse of Warren’s back as the man sleeps peacefully beside him. He wakes him up by dragging his lips over the marks, mouth curving into a grin as Warren responds only with a rough, amused, “Good morning to you too.”

“Thoughts on a round two?” Daniel asks, rolling onto his back as Warren turns over to face him. Their eyes meet. Warren contemplates it for a long second, before sitting up.

“No, we have work to do,” he tells him, and Daniel can’t feel too disappointed when he hears the dislike in Warren’s voice of the commands he’s setting himself.

Still, he snorts. “ _You_ have work to do,” he tells him, settling back into the bed. “I heard from a _super_ reliable source that Doug never gets up before midday if he can help it. He doesn’t need a chaperone if he’s not doing anything.”

Warren raises an eyebrow at him. “Well, _I_ heard from a reliable source that someone convinced him to try for sobriety. He’ll need someone to keep an eye on him through his withdrawal. Besides,” and now he glances away, pushing himself out of bed and picking up his clothes from where they lay strewn across the ground from the night before, “that’s not the only work we have to do today.”

Daniel follows him out of bed, collecting his clothes at the same time. “What else is coming up?”

“Cutter’s calling.”

“ _What_?”

Warren drops his clothes onto the bed to sort them out later. “And there’s… another person joining us at the facility. This is what I didn’t want to tell you about yesterday.”

“Who’s joining us? Also, voice call or video call?”

Warren smirks. “Video, so you might want to find a scarf.” Daniel flushes slightly at the reminder of the mess Warren left of his throat. “And she’s from the partner facility. Her name’s Isabel. She’s the trade for Kate and Dominik.”

“Why, is she useless too?” Daniel’s finished picking up his clothes, now, and he tugs on his boxers as he talks. He needs to put _something_ on to get back to his own room.

“None of them are _useless_ , but yes, she’s been proving difficult to match to the other members of her group.”

“Huh,” Daniel says, more to himself. Then, “Wait, this facility sent them a boy and a girl, and we’re only receiving a girl back? It’s just gonna be Doug and four chicks. That’s kinda unfair.”

Warren’s eyes stray to the side as he represses his smirk, barely. “From what I’ve heard about him, that won’t be too much of a problem.”

“ _Hey_.” Daniel throws a sock at him, and he catches it with ease, eyes sparkling. “Don’t talk about my kid like that.”

“Your kid?” Warren’s smirk only grows. “You’ve known him for a day and you’re already _adopting_ him. Daniel, I didn’t know you had such a paternal instinct.”

Daniel throws the other sock at him.

 

* * *

 

Isabel is arriving before Cutter calls, Daniel later finds out.

An hour later, to be precise, as he stands at the entrance to the facility along with Warren, Alana, Doug, Renée, Hera and Dr Hilbert. They’re standing at what is, effectively, the back door to the facility, in the hope of avoiding any greedy journalists lingering outside the building’s main entrance.

There is no ceremonious nature to her arrival – a sleek, black car, following a regular police van, pulls up at the steps they’re standing on, and a couple of security guards climb out, followed by a girl – no, a _woman_ , small but fiery in her stance. One of the guards moves to pull her suitcase out of the trunk of the car, but she grabs it herself, lifting a case that must be almost as big as she is out with limited effort.

“Welcome to –” Warren starts, but she brushes past him, setting the case down at the top of the stairs to wheel it inside. The security guards herd the rest of them back in, too, to follow her. Alana and Daniel try not to snort at the expression on Warren’s face.

“He’s not used to getting nudged aside,” Alana whispers to Hera, who in turn finds it within herself to crack a smile at the clear disbelief on Warren’s face.

Isabel does finally let the security guard take her luggage when she realises she has to go in a different direction to where her bedroom is. “Cutter’s calling,” she tells them, as if they don’t already know, “and I’m supposed to report immediately to Meeting Room B. Anyone wanna point out the signpost?”

She speaks coldly, but not overemotionally. It’s more of a sense of imprisonment, resignation, a finality that she won’t embrace but can’t shake off. She meets Warren’s gaze head-on. “Don’t bother introducing yourself,” she adds, when he opens his mouth to talk. “I know who you are. I know who _all_ of you are. I also just figured out which hole Dr Selberg crawled into after leaving us.”

With that, her eyes, along with everyone else’s, turn to Hilbert. He looks distinctly uncomfortable. “Isabel,” he starts, but she lifts her hand, and despite him being in charge of both her _and_ everyone else here, the commanding presence with which she moves shuts him up.

“I can catch up with you later,” she tells him. “Preferably with a glass, or _bottle_ , of the strongest spirit you’ve got in this place. Meeting Room B, Kepler. Where is it.”

“The call’s for _all_ of us, you know,” he responds, equally cold. Everyone can tell he dislikes being undermined like this. “You can follow _me_ to Meeting Room B, and then you can keep quiet while _I_ conduct a meeting with our president. You can speak when spoken to, and after this call is over, feel free to act like the brat you clearly want us to think you are. Are we clear?”

A smirk twitches at Daniel’s lips. Isabel has never been spoken to like that before in her life, and they can all tell.

“Fine,” she relents, eventually. “Lead the way.”

 

* * *

 

“Warren, Daniel, Alana. It looks like this move is doing _wonders_ for you. You’re already looking healthier, happier…”

Cutter’s voice grates on Warren’s every nerve but he stays there, face neutral, _polite_ as he replies. “Thank you, sir. The move itself was relatively simple and our hosts are… more than welcoming.”

“Is that so?” Cutter sounds ecstatic. “I can’t say I’m surprised. Renée, Doug and Hera are among the most competent eighteen-year-olds I know.” He pauses, before chuckling. “Then again, I only know ten in total. It’s been a loooong time since we last spoke, though, hasn’t it?”

Warren opens his mouth to reply, but Cutter’s gaze shifts to the three subjects.

Renée, ever the leader of the pack, answers for them. “Yes, sir, it has.” Her words sound off, uncomfortable, ill-fitting. Warren chalks it up to her being face-to-face with the most powerful man in the world.

“And how are you doing?”

Renée hesitates, because she’s wondering if it’s a trick question, because _everything_ could be a trick question with Cutter. “Good, sir,” is her eventual reply.

Cutter hums. “Good? Doug’s had three hangovers this week. Two people you’ve known since birth were just moved elsewhere without even warning you. These pesky handlers have appeared out of nowhere – and not anyone, but an _infamous_ trio of previous subjects – and now a complete stranger is on your doorstep, taking Kate’s room, and telling you she’s your new family.”

“I didn’t –” Isabel starts, but she’s cut off almost immediately.

“ _Don’t_ interrupt me, Isabel.” Cutter’s eyes flick back to Renée. “But, Renée, you’re… _good_?” He speaks slowly, now, and it feels eerily dangerous. “Try not to lie to me, this time. How are you doing?”

Warren almost feels sorry for her. _Almost_.

After a brief moment of allowing herself to be startled, Renée replies, carefully, “Confused, sir. We’re confused.”

“And you should be!” Cutter sounds warmer, now. “So much is happening. Your tiny minds are probably struggling to process it – that wasn’t an insult, of course, but you’re all so _young_. Young and inexperienced. It’s why you need handlers in the first place.” His gaze turns to Isabel, but it’s clear he’s talking to Renée, still. “But it’s alright. Just remember, we know what we’re doing. And we’re doing the right thing. We obviously still have a big goal ahead of us – saving the human race, all that, you’ve heard it before. But while you might feel… slighted, by recent events, don’t forget that everything we’re doing, we’re doing for _you_.”

He looks back at Renée when he says that, casually avoiding the smothered rage in Isabel’s eyes. Nobody else in the room can ignore it. But as Cutter holds Renée’s gaze, he tells her, “I’ve always trusted you with this mission. Perhaps you could teach your newly-arrived friends a lesson or two about their duty to our species.”

Daniel tenses beside Warren. Isabel looks like she’s about to explode. Nobody responds.

The rest of the meeting is dull; Cutter runs through their duties and expectations, and gives Hilbert a metaphorical pat on the head for not killing them all yet. Calling this facility will, apparently, become more regular, though likely just as a one-to-one with the most senior person there – Kepler.

_Kepler?_

Hilbert protests. “ _I_ am in charge, sir! I don’t know what I did wrong, but I _will_ rectify mistakes if - if you give me the _chance_!”

Cutter ignores him, and hangs up soon after, leaving the group as… a mess.

Isabel looks ready to punch a wall but nobody has the guts to ask her why. Renée, Doug and Hera, still so sheltered, so protected, sit with wide eyes and stunned faces at the debacle they just witnessed. Daniel looked down at his lap halfway through the call like a scolded schoolboy and hasn’t glanced up since. Alana leans against him, as shell-shocked as the subjects. Hilbert looks terrified.

Warren stands up, and assumes his new position as leader.

“Did you know?” Hilbert all-but hisses at him, and he shakes his head.

“No.”

Hilbert doesn’t quite believe this is the truth, but Warren doesn’t particularly care. “What did I _do_?”

“Maybe,” Warren replies coolly, “it’s about what you _haven’t_ done. How you _haven’t_ prepared these kids for the outside world. How you _didn’t_ stop Doug from developing an alcohol dependency. How you _haven’t_ managed to produce any results. Consider that, Doctor, and stop whining about your demotion before I feel the need to demote you further to a _graveyard_ shift.”

The threat is empty, and they all know it, but it’s still the first time any of them – Daniel and Alana aside – have seen this side of Warren. The room is quiet after his outburst.

Exhaling slowly, Warren continues. “The rest of the day can go as planned. Renée, if you could show Isabel to her room?” Renée nods, and stands up, glancing nervously to the stranger who can only be likened to a hurricane disguised as a breeze. They leave together.

Doug and Hera glance at each other uncomfortably before getting up and leaving too. Hilbert slinks out afterward, barely sparing Warren a glance. Daniel squeezes Warren’s wrist gently, a gesture that _should_ be reassuring, _would_ be in any other scenario, before he and Alana leave as well.

Warren is left alone, glaring at a blank screen where his boss used to be.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Wonder how Renée’s getting on with the new girl,” Doug says absently. 
> 
> Renée _isn’t_ getting on with the new girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a bit of an intermission chapter? i rly wanted to emphasise hera and eiffel's friendship, since they've barely interacted, and maxwell and jacobi's friendship, since _they've_ barely interacted, and also play around with the season 2-esque dynamic between lovelace and minkowski. and you didn't need to know any of this so i'm gonna shut up now

“This is so weird,” Doug says, and Hera huffs. “No – _seriously_. First they take Kate and Dom, then they send the _terrible trio_ to take care of us, then some chick arrives out of nowhere to be our new roomie, and now Warren Kepler’s in charge of the facility and Hilbert’s getting booted to the curb?”

“ _Seriously_ ,” Hera agrees, “it’s so weird. And it’s not like anything even—even happened! They’ve just decided to change everything in two—two days and nobody’s actually explaining _why_.”

Doug groans. “And I can’t even go get a drink and forget about it!”

Hera glances at him curiously, then. “Speaking of, why _are_ you suddenly sobering up? Kate, Renée and—and I couldn’t get you to go a couple _days_ without drinking. What’s different now?”

Doug glances away guiltily. “I dunno,” he mutters. “Change? Everything’s changing, I might as well get on the bandwagon to Utopia while everyone’s filling out their New Year’s resolutions. Jacobi told me to stop, and to be honest, I’m still kinda scared of him, so I guess I stop.”

“You were scared of Jacobi and not _Renée_?” Hera asks, dumbfounded.

With a snort, Doug leans back. “I know Renée loves me. Under, y’know, twelve layers of yelling at me. I met Jacobi _yesterday_ and his boyfriend just took over the entire facility. What am I supposed to think of him?”

“I don’t know,” Hera replies. “I mean, Alana trusts him. They’ve been best—best friends since _forever_.”

Doug stares at her, blank. “Alana’s another person we just met yesterday! Her _friend_ just took over the facility. I dunno, it just – it feels wrong. It feels like something’s off.”

“What’s going to be off?” Hera swings her legs round and sits next to Doug on the bed, slumped together, staring at the wall. Her head leans on his shoulder. He shifts, lifting her head only for a moment to free his arm so he can drape it round her shoulders and tug her in closer. “They still need us,” Hera continues. “We _are_ still the last generation. It’s not like they’re going to endanger us or anything.”

“You don’t know that,” Doug replies. “They admitted that they took Kate and Dom away because they’re the most useful. What if Isabel _isn’t_ useful and they’re dumping all the bad eggs here?”

Hera sighs, trying to relax into Doug’s hold. “I don’t—don’t think they’d throw all their money away like—like that.” She hesitates. “How are you doing without Kate, anyway?”

She feels Doug tense slightly, and regrets saying anything. Doug doesn’t pull away – in fact, he pulls her closer, burying his nose in her hair. “It’s gonna be weird without her,” he says, and all she can do is hum in agreement.

“Yeah,” she replies, but she didn’t care about Dom and Kate in the way Doug and Renée did. Renée has been Dom’s almost-girlfriend since they were twelve years old. Doug and Kate… they’ve had a rocky relationship, sure, but ever since they hit about sixteen years old, they became an on-off way to make lonely nights bearable. It was a little messed up, but nobody ever stopped them.

And she was Hera. Nobody’s girlfriend. Nobody’s bedwarmer. But she and Doug had something stronger than he and Kate had – a bond, a love, a care for each other that went deeper than anything she’d ever experienced with anyone else. _Yes_ , she loves Dom and Kate, just as she loves Renée, and she’ll miss them, but if she woke up one day and Doug was gone…

She wouldn’t last without him. She has the sneaking suspicion Renée wouldn’t, either.

“Wonder how Renée’s getting on with the new girl,” Doug says absently. Hera doesn’t reply to him. There’s a silence forming in the air around them that she can’t bear to break.

Hera presses herself closer to Doug, and pretends the rest of the world is okay for a while.

 

* * *

 

Renée _isn’t_ getting on with the new girl.

She’s all-but _completely_ lost her patience with the new girl, in fact. She led her down the winding corridors silently to find her room, pointing out Doug’s on her left, Kepler’s on her right. She told her this used to be Kate’s room, and that Kepler’s room used to be Dominik’s, and that they’re on their way over to the facility she came from.

Isabel says nothing. Her eyes continuously dart around, as though she’s mapping every escape route she can take. _Maybe she is_. She continues to ignore Renée, strategist and survivor and victim all compressed into her narrowed gaze. Renée has so many questions. She doesn’t ask them.

The suitcases Isabel arrived with are already in her room, and from the looks of it, anything distinctly _Kate_ has been stripped from the room. There’s a slightly faded colour on the walls where her posters used to hang, gaps in the dust where her photo frames stood and smoothed out bedsheets where she would have left hers strewn across the ground. _Just like Doug_.

It’s almost painful, to recall how similar they were. _Are_ , she corrects herself. Kate isn’t dead. She’s moving away. Regardless, they’ll be back at some point. Isabel will go home and stop –

“What are you doing?” Renée asks, confused.

Isabel turns to her from her crouched position by the bed. “This place is underground,” she says, as though that explains everything. “There’s gotta be a vent system around here.”

Renée blinks. “Yeah, the vents are behind the… why do you care?”

“Behind the _what_?”

“Why do you _care_?” Renée repeats, more annoyed this time. She knows exactly where the vents are in this room. She actually knows the entire ventilation system for the building, after a particular game of hide-and-seek went very, _very_ wrong as kids, and opened up so many new opportunities for them. Without getting stuck in the vents, she wouldn’t know about the tunnels. “Tell me,” she continues, “and I’ll tell you where they are. It’s really simple.”

Isabel hesitates. “No windows,” she mutters, and then straightens up from her position by the bed. “No windows means no easy escape. No easy escape is never a good thing.”

“Why are you trying to _escape_?”

“I might have to,” and Isabel’s practised in lying, Renée can tell, but she just wonders who she’s spent her life lying _to_ , “if there was a fire?”

Renée presses her lips together, unimpressed. “We have fire safety protocols, and they definitely don’t involve climbing into tiny, enclosed spaces that air, and thus _smoke_ , and also _oxygen_ – the kind that makes fire _fierier_ – is designed to travel through. Why are you trying to escape?”

“Hey,” Isabel replies, “I answered your question. I told you why I cared. Now where’s the vent?”

A pause. Renée hesitates. But, eventually, she lifts her hand, pointing to the desk and the metal grate behind it. Isabel heads over, immediately inspecting it. She seems satisfied, at least, as she looks up at Renée. It then becomes clear that she’s waiting for her to leave.

“Wait,” Renée starts, because the expression on Isabel’s face is not one of hospitality, “I need to know – what happened with you and President Cutter?”

Isabel stares at her, gaze unflinching, for several long seconds. “You don’t need to know,” she replies, eventually, and it’s exactly the answer Renée doesn’t want to hear, as correct as Isabel might be.

“Fine. I _want_ to know.”

She feels uncomfortable under Isabel’s scrutiny, but stands her ground, chin tilted up to meet her eyes as defiantly as she can. Isabel glances away after a moment, and Renée considers it a small, private victory to win the staring contest. “I have suspicions around Cutter,” Isabel says quietly. “I’m not gonna tell you any more than that because I don’t want to drag you into anything you don’t deserve to be part of.”

“You’re trying to _protect_ me?” Renée asks, offended – no, _horrified_ , that Isabel thinks she would need such a thing.

“Yes,” Isabel snaps. “You sure as hell need it. Do you know what the world out there is like? What _people_ are like? Have you even met Cutter in _person_ before?”

Renée hesitates. “Yes,” she replies, but the weakness in her voice gives it away. “A couple of times. Years ago.”

“Good,” Isabel bites back. “Pray you never have to see him again.”

 

* * *

 

“Maxwell,” Daniel says, breaking the silence. “ _Maxwell_.”

“What?” Alana asks.

“Get your feet off my face.”

“What?” she repeats, sitting up a little to look at where Daniel is draped across her bed. True enough, her feet have slipped down from where she was resting them on his chest, and now her heel rests in the hollow of his throat. He doesn’t seem particularly bothered about the position, but she moves her feet obediently, balancing them back on his chest.

The silence in the room has been tenser than it usually is between them – normally they’re quiet and comfortably so, able to bask in each other’s acceptance and hang out with no effort involved – but today is different. After Warren’s promotion that morning, they left the meeting room together, and neither of them have spoken about what happened since. The silence is awkward.

Daniel’s words seem to have snapped them out of that quiet bubble they were in before, though, as he says almost immediately after, “This bed is _super_ uncomfortable compared to the subjects’ beds.”

“Right?” Alana responds, enthusiastic in her agreement. It’s a bed – a _normal_ bed – but after laying on Hera’s yesterday, she can’t help but miss the luxury threat count and soft mattress that sculpted itself around her body perfectly. “Wait, why do you know what the subjects’ beds are like?”

“Why do you?” he shoots back.

“I almost fell asleep in Hera’s,” she replies unashamedly. “I was tired! We were chatting! It’s not like she was in the bed _with_ me.”

Daniel raises an eyebrow. “Uh huh, sure.”

“What about you? Did your first day with Doug really go _that_ well?”

“Shut up,” he replies, restraining an ugly snort at the idea of sleeping with _Doug_ of all people. “Warren took over Dominik’s old room. I got to throw him a, uh, _housewarming party_.”

Alana’s laying back, so she can’t see the ridiculous grin on his face, but she can most certainly hear it. “Eugh,” is her only response, and Daniel laughs at her.

A minute goes by, and Alana wishes she could pull out her laptop and distract herself by creating something, and Daniel wishes he could distract himself with a cigarette, but neither of them want to move out of these four protected walls _just_ yet.

“Is he okay?” Alana asks.

Daniel doesn’t need to ask her who she’s talking about. They both know. “Yeah,” he mutters. “You know what he’s like. He was made for something like this.”

“Cutter just gave him control of the entire facility with _no_ warning –”

“And he’ll _deal_ with it, because that’s what he _does_.” Daniel can’t prevent the admiration from slipping into his voice. He’s never known a more natural-born leader than Warren. Then again, the number of people he’s _ever_ known can be condensed into a relatively short list. “Cutter wouldn’t have given him the job if he didn’t think he could do it. And who knows, maybe this is a second chance for – well, for all of us.”

Alana wonders if either of them actually believe him.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hilbert barely taught the kids to tie their own shoelaces while he was in charge of them. Hopefully, you can do better.”
> 
> “Of course, sir,” he replies, immediate, _too_ immediate, stammering over himself in his desperation to sate Cutter’s appetite for a decent sidekick, a trusted advisor, a loyal right hand. 
> 
> “Good,” Cutter replies. “Don’t let me down, Warren.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for vivid descriptions of alcohol withdrawal symptoms in this chapter <3

Warren sits alone at the table, facing the monitor. Cutter’s face is larger than life, but only slightly – if he were to lean back, Warren would almost be able to believe they’re in the room together. Cutter’s eyes are sharp, his teeth are white, and his smile ends at the corners of his lips. Warren’s been in one-to-one meetings with him before, but this seems different. These are not merely orders received from a superior – these are directions on how to be a _leader_. Strangely, he misses Daniel’s presence beside him, or Alana’s calculating gaze analysing the same situation as him to draw conclusions he wouldn’t have come up with alone. He needs his team. Without them, he feels exposed.

“Hera,” Cutter says, and Warren sits up slightly to reply.

“Shy,” he replies, “or guarded. I can’t tell which. She’s closest with Doug, I believe, but she and Renée are fairly close too. Alana seems to be making swift progress with her. They’ve bonded over _computing_ of all things.” Cutter chuckles at this, and Warren is grateful to his own skills as an actor that he can allow himself to act so nonchalant in the President’s presence. “The only problem we might see from her is if they combine their skills and build a battle bot.”

The glint from Cutter’s teeth when they’re bared is almost distracting. “Doug.”

Warren hesitates slightly with this one. “Daniel has… also made progress with him. They aren’t as ready to jump into bed together as Alana and Hera, but Daniel’s convinced him to stop drinking, at least. It’ll be a lengthy process to consider him clean, but it’s one we’ve already managed to begin.”

“Good, all good. Renée?”

“Slightly more argumentative,” Warren answers honestly, “but not particularly difficult to deal with. She asks questions and, on occasion, I answer them. That alone seems to satisfy her.”

Cutter smiles again. “She’s quite forceful, isn’t she?”

“Not particularly,” Warren replies. “She – in comparison with Isabel, she’s practically _docile_.”

At the mention of Isabel’s name, Cutter’s demeanour changes. He looks – not _disappointed_ , but concerned. Warren wants to ask, and so, he does. “Sir,” he starts carefully, “what did she do? What do I need to know, here?”

“She’s a competent liar,” Cutter replies, “and a dangerous person.”

Warren knows that’s all he’ll get from him, so he nods. “And why was her group of subjects kept secret from this group of subjects – and, also, the rest of the _world_?”

Cutter squints at him. “Why do you care about that?”

With a slight hint of a smile, he replies, “I don’t, sir. But like I said, Renée’s been insistent in her questions, and some of them I just don’t have answers to because I don’t know the answers myself.”

Cutter grins. “Well, tell her this. We wanted to keep the two groups separate as a backup. Doing these trials gives people hope, so putting the subjects into the public eye was necessary. However, if anything happened to them because of their fame, it was important to have another group that we could turn to so not to _lose_ that hope. Then we would’ve just had… chaos. It just so happens the backup group is the more useful one in terms of genetics and test results.” He shrugs slightly. “Tell Renée it was for _safety_.”

Holding his breath, Warren pulls together the courage to ask his other question. “What do I need to know about Hilbert?”

With an inelegant snort of a laugh, Cutter replies, “Warren, the man’s a creep. We kept him around because he produced good results. Promising ones. Ones that could unlock the secrets of revitalising the population.” He pauses. “He’s been producing _promising_ results for two decades. Have we seen any evidence that the population can be revitalised? No.” He pauses again, this time slightly thoughtful. “I want Isabel to quieten down, and she wouldn’t do that with Hilbert running the facility. I want to remind Hilbert of just how expendable he is. I want to give _you_ a chance to redeem yourself.”

Warren straightens up slightly at that comment. Cutter continues. “Hilbert barely taught the kids to tie their own shoelaces while he was in charge of them. Hopefully, you can do better.”

“Of course, sir,” he replies, immediate, _too_ immediate, stammering over himself in his desperation to sate Cutter’s appetite for a decent sidekick, a trusted advisor, a loyal right hand.

“Good,” Cutter replies. “Don’t let me down, Warren.”

 

* * *

 

At the knock on her door, Isabel shoves the blueprints of the building’s layout under her duvet, getting up and listening for a moment to see if she can discern who is on the other side of the door. She can’t, but she thinks she hears the clink of a glass as whoever’s outside shifts, and opens the door after a moment.

Renée stands on the other side, holding about eight bottles of various alcoholic drinks and glancing nervously down the corridor. Before she can think better of it, Isabel bursts into laughter.

The sound takes Renée aback. She likely hadn’t expected to hear Isabel laugh… _ever_. “You’re full of surprises,” she mutters, and Isabel, still grinning, steps aside to let her in.

“Says you. Man, I wanna hear the story behind this one.”

Renée shuffles inside awkwardly, drinks sloshing in their closed glass containers. Her movements are careful as she tries not to drop and shatter any of them, and Isabel takes pity on the bizarre sight of her new housemate, tugging a bottle out from where it’s been precariously stuffed under her arm and looked close to falling.

“Seriously,” Isabel adds, “what’s the occasion? I mean – I’m down, either way, but I’d never expect it of you. Doug, yes. Hera… I could see it. Maxwell and Jacobi, definitely, but _you_?” She tsks. “I expected better of you.”

“Shut up,” Renée replies, but there’s no bite in her tone. If anything, she sounds a little pleased that Isabel didn’t immediately close the door in her face. “I don’t know where else to go with this stuff. We’re hiding all the alcohol in the house, since Doug’s actually – _finally_ – taking sobriety seriously. Can’t leave it in my room or Hera’s room, because he hangs out in those rooms all the time. I don’t particularly want to go to any of the handlers with it, either.”

Isabel raises an eyebrow. “That leaves me, then.”

“Unless Doug’s been hanging out with you and none of us knew about it,” Renée replies.

Squinting, Isabel asks, “Was that a _joke_ , Renée? Don’t tell me you have a _sense of humour_.”

“Says the girl who’s been here two days and cracked a smile _once_ ,” she huffs. “Seriously! I was wondering if you actually had it in you to do things like _laugh_ until now. It was eerie.”

Not replying, Isabel chooses to inspect the bottle in her hands instead of meeting Renée’s eyes. Whiskey. _Good_ whiskey. _Old_ whiskey. She can’t believe even Doug would down this in a fit of alcoholic desperation. This must be worth thousands of dollars, by now. She glances up to Renée, who is still in the middle of unpacking the bottles from her arms to place them carefully on the bed.

Renée sees her looking. “We can figure out where to put them when I’m not about to drop them all,” she says in explanation, but Isabel didn’t really need one. The bed makes a crinkling sound, though, when Renée puts a bottle of wine on top of where Isabel had stuffed the blueprints.

_Oh, god_. Now she’s pulling them out. Her eyes skim over the sketched layout of the facility briefly, eyebrows knitting together in first confusion and then… _fear?_ “Where did you get this?” she demands, and Isabel walks forward, snatching the map off her.

“None of your business. Are you done with the bottles?”

“Isabel, what are you –” She sighs. “Are you still trying to figure out an escape from this place?”

Isabel glares at her. “I’m staying vigilant,” she shoots back. “It might do you some good to do the same.” She almost drops the bottle onto the bed, to join the others, but hesitates. The alcohol reminds her of something she meant to ask as soon as she arrived. “How does Doug leave?”

“What?”

“You guys just got chaperones to watch over you,” she says, slowly, “but Doug’s been out drinking regularly for the last year. How did he get out of the building?”

Renée looks distinctly uncomfortable. “If I tell you, are you gonna bolt for the exit and never look back?”

“No.” Isabel hopes the conviction in her voice is enough to persuade Renée. She hesitates, then adds, “I don’t like being cornered. But if I ever actually needed to escape, chances are, you would too. And I’m not just gonna leave the three of you here while I leave.”

Now, Renée looks torn.

With a quirk of a smile, Isabel lifts the bottle. “You could tell me over a drink?”

She watches Renée’s expression change fractionally, and she knows she’s won her over.

 

* * *

 

More than anything, Doug hates the shaking.

He can deal with the sleeplessness, the excessive showering as he continues to sweat out the precious water he’s been allowed to drink, the pounding ache between his eyes that seems to almost disappear every couple of hours before returning full force, and even the occasional moment of having to stumble into the bathroom and throw up what little food he’s convinced his body he needs to eat.

All of that is acceptable, all of that is fine, it’s _fine_. But the shaking is horrible. He doesn’t feel in control of his own body, anymore, and the anxiety lurking at the back of his mind asks _were you ever in control?_ He ignores it. He tries to ignore it.

Hera offered to stay the night, as the withdrawal symptoms upped their game and she helped him to bed, but he waved her off. He’d be fine. It’s just a little shaking.

Daniel turned up, about ten minutes after Hera left, and he’s been here ever since. He dutifully empties Doug’s trash can to stick it next to the bed for any future waves of nausea. He dumps all his sweaty clothes into the laundry basket, and carefully, almost kindly, undresses him. Daniel’s touch is gentle when he lifts Doug’s arms to tug his t-shirt off, and he drapes a light blanket over him, seemingly aware that the thick, luxurious duvet spread across his bed would be far too warm for Doug’s current state.

At some point, Daniel falls asleep, likely an accident from the position he’s in. Soon after, light snoring fills the silence in the room, and while it’s incredibly _distracting_ , it’s also incredibly _grounding_. Doug leaves Daniel alone in the bed to silently pace up and down the room, cursing his trembling hands, cursing his insomnia, cursing this _dumb_ idea to go sober in the first place.

When Hilbert appears at his door at what must be approaching 3 A.M., Doug wonders if the hallucinations he was warned about have finally kicked in.

“You look terrible,” Hilbert tells him when he opens the door. His voice is hushed, and as soon as the door is wide enough, his eyes dart nervously to the sight of Daniel on the bed.

“All part of the detox, Doc,” Doug replies casually, as though he isn’t currently living through hell itself.

Hilbert’s eyes haven’t left Daniel. “Is he asleep?”

“As far as I’m aware, yeah. Either that or he’s been faking it for, like, two hours.” Doug hesitates, and he’s glad to still have the presence of mind to ask, slightly more urgently, “What’s up? Are you okay?”

“None of us are,” Hilbert replies, voice still low, and Doug’s heart skips a beat nervously. Or he just suffered through another heart palpitation. Those have been on the increase over the last two days. “Doug, I know you’re distracted, right now –”

“No shit, Sher-lex.”

“—But you need to listen to me. You need to get out of here, as soon as you can. Wait until worst of withdrawal is over, then _leave_. Take Renée. Take Hera. You are in immeasurable danger.”

Doug blinks. “Wait, what?”

“Cannot explain. No time. Just – I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t _need_ you to believe me.”

This, Doug can believe easily. While he has been closer with Dr Hilbert than any of the other members of his generation – seemingly including Isabel – he still wouldn’t be _here_ , talking to him in the early hours, if he didn’t have something important to say. It’s the sort of person Hilbert is. “What about you?” Doug asks, because _take Renée, take Hera_ doesn’t inspire much confidence in the doctor’s own future.

“Will stay behind. Don’t tell me where you go, or how you do it. Is only something they can torture out of me.”

“ _Torture_?” Doug hisses.

Behind him, Daniel stirs on the bed, and both of them freeze. After a few seconds, the quiet snoring starts up again, and Doug relaxes fractionally. Hilbert doesn’t.

“Only a theory,” he tells him, “but don’t risk it. Get out. Take girls. _Tell me nothing_.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I said I was storing the alcohol in your room to avoid _Doug_ drinking it, not to let _you_ drink it instead.”
> 
> “It’s been a stressful day,” Isabel tells her, lips pressing together tightly.
> 
> “It’s eleven-thirty in the morning!”
> 
> “Then it’s been a stressful _morning_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is your reminder to blease be aware that the tags are updating on this fic all the time <3

Daniel and Doug enter the dining hall together in the morning. Doug looks entirely dishevelled from a sleepless night, still shaking, still sweating, still forgetting to blink most of the time. Daniel looks equally dishevelled for very different reasons – he didn’t bother to make the trek back to his room before breakfast to get changed or shower, so he turns up now, his bedhead and yesterday’s now-rumpled clothes arriving with him.

Warren raises an eyebrow at him when he enters, but says nothing, and Daniel tries to quell the guilt churning in the pit of his stomach that he never made it back to Warren’s bed last night.

“Now that you’re all here,” Warren starts, voice emotionless ( _but he won’t look at you, why won’t he look at you_ ), “I have some news to share with you all. Dr Hilbert has gone missing.”

There are various noises of surprise made from the people around the room, all six of them sitting up and paying attention to Warren as he continues. “Security is on high alert, but nobody has found him yet. I’ve been in contact with President Cutter to inform him of what’s happened, and he’ll let us know when he’s found another doctor he can send over to oversee your treatments until Hilbert is either found, or replaced permanently.”

At any other time, Daniel would be impressed with Warren’s steely resolve, considering him a true leader, a natural calm presence at a time of crisis, but right now he’s just confused. They all are. Doug, especially, looks disbelieving.

“He wouldn’t just –” Doug starts, and someone – Daniel suspects it’s Isabel – kicks him under the table, but he repeats, “he wouldn’t just _leave_!”

Warren’s glare, colder than he would usually seem, is levelled to meet Doug’s eyes. “The childlike optimism is cute, Doug,” he replies, “but Dr Hilbert is a man who I learned a long time ago to have very little faith in. I don’t think I’m alone in that,” and his gaze darts briefly to Daniel, and then Isabel, and then back to Doug, “but I’ll leave you to mourn his absence in your _own_ time.”

Doug almost seems to cower back from Warren where he sits. The rest of breakfast passes in near silence.

“You’re dismissed for the day,” Warren tells them, just as the first people begin to stand up to leave. “All duties you previously had lined up have been… put on hold. Can’t do any biological tests without a _biologist_ on hand.”

Just as Daniel’s about to leave, catching Alana’s eyes and silently agreeing _we need to talk about this_ , Warren speaks up again. “Daniel? Can I have a word with you?”

Daniel hesitates by the door, before turning back to face him. Alana, like the others, leaves without him, and he watches – almost fascinated – as Warren presses his hands to the table, hanging his head. It’s a moment of vulnerability nobody else gets to see, and as Daniel closes the door, he decides it’s a moment nobody else _deserves_ to see.

“You were with Doug last night?” Warren asks.

The question takes Daniel aback, somewhat. “Uh,” he starts intelligently, “yeah, I was helping him out with his whole crazy withdrawal schtick, and then I… passed out, at some point.”

Warren hesitates. “So you didn’t –”

He doesn’t seem to want to finish the question, but Daniel’s eyes widen when he realises what he was about to ask. “What – no, holy crap, _no_. He’s _eighteen_!”

Almost embarrassed, Warren looks down again. He seems to be glaring at the surface of the table as though it, personally, has done him a great disservice.

Daniel lets his instinct take him slowly, carefully, across the room to meet Warren. He turns him away from the table, presses a kiss against his still-ducked forehead, and tilts his chin up. Despite only being in charge for the last couple of days, he already seems stressed, _exhausted_.

He tries to murmur an apology, but Daniel kisses him silent, and Warren draws him closer almost immediately. “It’s been an eventful few days,” he whispers against Daniel’s jaw.

Daniel closes his eyes. “I can’t believe you thought I fucked Doug,” he replies, amusement tinting his tone, and Warren huffs. The hot air brushes over Daniel’s cheek, and he relaxes into the sensation, catching Warren’s lips again with his own.

Pulling away after a moment, he adds, “This place is really screwing you over, huh.”

“It’s not this place,” Warren replies, and he sounds distant. “It’s talking to Cutter three times in as many days.”

Daniel can hardly blame him. Without a real answer to give, he simply picks up Warren’s hand, pressing his lips to the palm carefully. “Did you just give everyone the day off?” he asks, tone changing, conversation changing, _atmosphere_ changing. “Because I feel like we had some unfinished business. Might’ve been located somewhere in your room. Maybe even in your bed.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Warren mutters, but allows himself to be led out of the dining hall nonetheless.

 

* * *

 

“You’re kidding me,” says Renée from the doorway, and Isabel jumps hard enough to spill her drink.

Dabbing at her shirt, she glares at Renée, putting her glass down and standing up. She heads to the door – to close it? To pull Renée inside the room? She’s not entirely sure, but she arrives at the doorway, irritated, grabbing at the door handle to do _something_.

Unfortunately, Renée beats her to it with the _something_ , as she continues talking. “I said I was storing the alcohol in your room to avoid _Doug_ drinking it, not to let _you_ drink it instead.”

“It’s been a stressful day,” Isabel tells her, lips pressing together tightly.

“It’s eleven-thirty in the morning!”

“Then it’s been a stressful _morning_.” Isabel steps back from the door. “Look, am I supposed to expect you in my room all the time, now? There’s a space between the bookcase and the drawers for you to stand in and look pretty if you’re _that_ desperate to become a permanent fixture.”

Renée’s cheeks colour, embarrassed, but she doesn’t let that deter her. She pushes past Isabel to collect the glass and the bottle from where they sit on her desk. It’s the whiskey Isabel was holding yesterday – against her better judgement, or remembering the inevitability of the end of the human race and the actual worthlessness of any expensive material goods these days, she opened it to share a glass with Renée as they talked. She cracked a smile at the expression on Renée’s face when she took her first sip, watching the whiskey burn her and watching her pretend to be unaffected.

They talked for an hour, at least, and then they hovered on a tipsy knife edge as Isabel privately wondered if Renée’s ever been kissed before, and then Renée left.

“Is this about Hilbert leaving?” Renée asks, picking up the bottle and looking around for the lid to screw back on.

Isabel huffs. “No,” she starts, before pausing. “Kind of.” At Renée’s raised eyebrows, she snatches the glass off the desk, taking another sip, avoiding her gaze for as long as possible. “I hated Sel- _Hilbert_. But we were… he was someone I knew. Even if I didn’t _want_ to know him, he was still a former friend, and that’s – it messes you up, okay?”

“You’re talking about him like he’s dead.” Renée sounds like she’s going to say something else to that, but doesn’t, simply picks up the bottle lid and caps the whiskey before setting the bottle back on the desk.

“He probably is,” Isabel replies.

Renée looks slightly taken aback. “Kepler said he –”

“Kepler’s saving face for his precious President,” Isabel interrupts, “or – worse, he doesn’t even know he’s been lied to.” She downs the rest of the glass before setting it back on the desk. “Look, you clearly want to know what happened. Hilbert tried to force me to go through the prep trials when I was fourteen. Cutter didn’t stop him. If the slimy son of a bitch were here now, he’d remind me he was _following his orders_ , but – god. They just didn’t get it.”

“Get what?” Renée asks, struggling to keep up.

Isabel looks at her, then – _really_ looks at her. “I got sent to this facility because I said no to the conception trials,” she tells her. “Just like Kepler, Jacobi and Maxwell did. I said no, but we weren’t a group of a hundred-odd kids, we were a group of _ten_. They couldn’t let me just… they _wouldn’t_ let me walk out on them.”

She laughs, but it isn’t the heart-warming sound Renée was lucky enough to hear yesterday, it’s a bitter sound and she doesn’t like it. “They told me I had a duty to _further the human race_ , and I told them something they’d never heard before.” A smirk twists her lips. “It doesn’t _need_ furthering. All good things come to an end, and _this_ thing? Can’t even really be called good. It was our time to die, and if they thought the answer to saving humanity was to force a bunch of test tube kids to live in a cage and exist to get pregnant, they didn’t even understand what it was to be human in the first place.”

Speechless, Renée only stares at her. It’s a good thing, too, because now’s as great a time as any for Isabel to tell her what’s _really_ happening here. “I was starting trouble, so they sent me here. We’re the rejects. We’re the problems. I wouldn’t be surprised if Cutter’s about to press a button and gas this entire fucking building, Renée.”

“You don’t mean that,” Renée starts, quietly, but Isabel shakes her head.

“I really do. I mean – I start causing problems for them, I come here. Kate and Dominik start being useful, they get sent away. Warren Kepler, Daniel Jacobi and Alana Maxwell – _the traitors of the century,_ according to the media – are all sent here at _exactly_ the same time?” She huffs again. “And now Hilbert, the only geneticist in the _country_ skilled enough to be trusted with this work, goes missing in the middle of the night. Piece it together, Renée, you’re a smart girl. They’ve put us all together for a reason.”

“And if you’re wrong?” Renée replies, defensive.

Isabel looks at her. “Do you _think_ I am?”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When she finishes talking, Daniel asks, “Who told you this?”
> 
> “Hera,” Alana replies, “but Doug told her – and Renée told _him_ – and Isabel told _her_.”
> 
> Bizarrely, Daniel snorts with laughter. “That’s so fucking convoluted,” he says. “Sure you’re not just playing Telephone?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next chapter is the last chapter, folks. again, tags have been updated, so take care !

It begins when Renée finds Doug. He’s still shaking, shaking so badly, but she lets him sit down on the bed and starts with, “I’ve been talking to Isabel. She thinks we’re in danger.”

Doug wholeheartedly agrees before Renée can even get another word in. “I know,” he mumbles, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I know, Hilbert told me – last night, I barely remember it, but he was here and he told me to run.”

“Wait, really?”

“ _Really_ really.” Doug sighs. “He – I don’t remember it well, it was the middle of the night, I couldn’t sleep and I kept throwing up and stuff and then Hilbert was _here_ , while Jacobi was in the freaking bed, and he said I had to get you and Hera and get out of here.” He hesitates. “And I could’ve _sworn_ he told me he wasn’t leaving. That he would stay here, to help out, and… I dunno. I dunno! But he seemed real scared, Renée.”

She pushes a hand through her hair, exhaling. “So am I,” she replies. “So am I.”

“What did Isabel say?” Doug asks.

Absurdly, Renée’s lips almost twist into a smile. “Now _that_ is a difficult question to answer,” she replies. “Isabel thinks we’ve all been trapped here… to be disposed of.”

She explains everything to him. He nods. By this point, he’s willing to believe any conspiracy theory, and this one is frighteningly coherent. They agree to meet up again that night to leave together, with Hera, with Isabel, under the guise of taking care of Doug while he’s ill.

Doug finds Hera. He pushes her bedroom door closed, walks inside a little unsteadily, checks that Alana isn’t here and then begins to explain everything Renée told him. The words keep bouncing around in his mind – _disposed of. Disposed_. _Disposable_.

“Kate and Dominik were said to be the successful ones in our group, and they got taken away, leaving us three behind,” he says, and Hera’s eyes are wide as she listens.

As fate would have it, only minutes after Doug leaves, Alana walks in.

“Can’t you—you _knock_?” Hera asks, bracing herself on the corner bedpost. Her breaths are shallow, her heart is racing and her vision is blurring – not unusual. She knows exactly what’s happening to her and she’ll much prefer it if Alana isn’t there to _watch_ her break down.

“Hera?” Alana asks, concerned, immediately glancing back at the door as if to decide whether she needs to find security. When her eyes meet Hera’s again, an understanding is conveyed between them, and – “ _Oh_ , you’re not dying, you’re having a panic attack.”

Hera tries to reply, but the waves of panic are crashing over her, and Alana crosses the room in a handful of strides and catches her before she can fall. “It’s okay,” she says, strangely soothing, and Hera would never have guessed she could be calming of all things. “It’s okay, I’m here, you’re safe, you’re okay.”

The words are useless and they both know it. Still, in any other situation, Hera could have grounded herself in those words, not dissimilar to the tactics Doug uses when he finds her in this state – but this time is different. This time, Alana’s _you’re safe_ doesn’t inspire warmth, or comfort.

It inspires a slightly delirious snort. “No,” Hera whispers, “no, I’m not.”

Alana asks what she means. Hera can’t go there just yet.

But, an hour later, when they’ve watched half a movie neither of them paid attention to and ate their way through a bag of chips, Hera begins to talk. She repeats everything Doug told her that Renée told him that Isabel told her because she trusts Alana, knows she shouldn’t but she _does_.

_Disposable. Kate and Dominik_.

“Isabel was causing trouble at her facility,” Hera recounts, “refusing to co—cooperate with the procedures and encouraging the other—other subjects in her group to reject the testing, and _she_ got sent—sent here.”

Alana leaves shortly after that. The words are echoing through her mind. She wants to ignore them, she wants to, wants to forget she ever asked, wants Hera to take it back, wants _Isabel_ to take it back –

Lost in her thoughts, she walks straight into Daniel in the corridor. He looks more unkempt than usual, slinking out of Warren’s room with an air of lazy satisfaction that dictates Alana neither wants to, nor needs to, know what he was doing in there.

“You’re _really_ doing the walk of shame at three in the afternoon?” she asks, doubtful.

At Daniel’s answering grin, she groans. His grin widens. “Hey,” he replies, “if I had _my_ way, it would’ve been at _never_ in the afternoon. Warren’s gotta go sit by the phone for Cutter, though, in case he calls back about replacing Hilbert.”

Cutter. Hilbert. Those two names bring Alana’s mood crashing back down, and she looks back at Daniel. “We, uh,” she starts, unsure of how to approach this – or _any_ serious topic of conversation – with him. “We need to talk.”

Daniel frowns. In her mind, Alana hears Hera’s stuttering voice – _disposable, Kate, Dominik, Isabel_ – and takes a deep breath, before repeating everything she’d just been told. Her voice wavers, slightly, when she begins to say, “Us three? We’re famous for being _useless_ in the generation above. We’re the nation’s screw-ups. And now we’re _here_ to do a job they never knew actually needed doing!”

When she finishes talking, Daniel asks, “Who told you this?”

“Hera,” Alana replies, “but Doug told her – and Renée told _him_ – and Isabel told _her_.”

Bizarrely, Daniel snorts with laughter. “That’s so fucking convoluted,” he says. “Sure you’re not just playing Telephone?”

Alana smacks him in the shoulder. He protests half-heartedly.

“Look,” Alana says, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but if she’s right – and she _sounds_ right, Daniel – then we’re all in trouble. If they’re going…” _We should go with them_. She doesn’t say it, but the implication is there.

Daniel doesn’t give her a proper answer. Daniel _can’t_ give her a proper answer. Not without consulting…

He knocks on the door, and enters after Warren replies, “Come in.” As he steps inside, closing the door behind him, he wonders how Warren hasn’t lost his mind in here – sat alone in a blank, white room, with only an empty screen to keep him company, tapping his nails rhythmically against the surface of the table he sits at. When Warren sees him, his eyebrows raise slightly. “Daniel, I’m waiting on a call from –”

“From Cutter, I know,” Daniel replies. “Do you – do you actually know when he’s gonna call?”

Warren glances briefly at the screen, then back at Daniel. “No.”

“Can I have a minute?”

“…Sure,” Warren replies eventually, turning to face Daniel properly. “You look like a mess, by the way.”

Daniel half-grins. “Hey, whose fault is that?” he asks, before the smile slips. “I was just talking to Maxwell, and, uh, she was talking about some… stuff. Stuff she’d overheard.” He tells Warren everything, then, not with Alana’s attitude – frantic, gullible – but with his own, waiting for Warren’s approval on whether to believe this or consider it complete nonsense. “So, _Isabel_ thinks we need to escape before they do to us whatever they did to Hilbert.”

There’s a brief silence. Daniel feels his skin crawl with discomfort at Warren’s lack of a response. Quietly, desperately, he fights the urge to say something more – to denounce it, call it a joke, let Warren go back to waiting for Cutter but –

“Alana believes this?” Warren asks, voice strangely empty.

“It… freaked her out, sure,” Daniel replies, not wanting to land his friend in trouble. Warren and Alana have been close since she left the trials, but everything is different now, what with Warren in charge, what with the nagging voice in the back of Daniel’s head wondering just _who_ he can trust in this facility anymore.

Warren’s eyes meet his. “Do _you_ believe it?”

He’s asking for an opinion Daniel can’t give. He’s asking for a choice Daniel can’t make. Something must reflect in Daniel’s eyes, a fear, because Warren’s expression softens slightly. “You do, don’t you,” he answers for him, and Daniel’s lack of a reply is all Warren needs to understand him. “Daniel, you _have_ to admit it sounds ridiculous.”

“But does it?” Daniel asks before he can help himself. “Isabel isn’t _wrong_ about any of it. Cutter just shoved a bunch of liabilities in one place and pulled out the only people here still worth anything to him. It looks _bad_.”

“I wouldn’t let Cutter do anything to you. Either of you.”

“Would you even have a _choice_? You’re one of us. One of the – the screw ups, the rejects, the dead ends.”

Daniel tries to move closer, but Warren presses a hand against his chest, stopping him. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, until…

“I’m waiting for an important call. Stop wasting my time like this, Daniel. I expected better from you.”

 

* * *

 

Renée closes the door behind her, seeing Doug and Hera sat on Doug’s bed together. “Isabel should get here soon,” she says. “Then I’ll lead the way through the vents, down to the tunnels, out to the street, and we can hack into the first empty van we find.” Her eyes glance to Hera. “And Maxwell might be joining us, if you’re right. No idea about Jacobi.”

“Or Kepler,” Doug pipes up, as though any of them could forget about him.

Clicking her tongue, Renée glances at the door again. “Look, we still don’t even know if he’s on our side or if he’s with –”

Before she can finish saying _Cutter_ , the artificial light in their room suddenly drops. They all freeze in the darkness. Then, a second later, the lights rise up again, this time tinted a deep shade of red.

An alarm begins to blare.

“Do they know we’re going or something?” Doug shouts over the alarm.

“No, you idiot,” Renée yells back, “this is the alarm for if someone’s _broken into the facility_!”

At that moment, they hear running down the corridor – multiple voices, security guards, heavy boots shaking the ground beneath them with each step. Doug and Hera both stand up, staring at the door. Without thinking, Renée casts her eyes around for the nearest weapon she can find, until she sees the chair tucked under Doug’s barely-used desk. She strides over to it, picks it up, and returns to stand in front of Doug and Hera.

Doug yelps when they hear the gunfire outside the door. Renée, heart pounding in her throat, tightens her grip on the chair and raises it in front of them.

The door is kicked open, splinters flying across the room. On the other side – gun raised, eyes on fire, jaw tight – stands Isabel.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a _new_ beginning, now. One where Doug is sober and Cutter can’t be trusted. One with Alana, which she’s excited about, and Jacobi, which she’s less excited about. One with no home and no destination.
> 
> One with freedom like she’s never even dreamed of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey!!!!! so here's the end of my random three-day fic that i threw up on the spot. hope you all enjoy <3

“The guards have turned against us,” is the first thing Isabel says, glancing both ways down the corridor before stepping inside and shutting the door. “They’re working for Cutter, they just tried to _shoot_ me. If you needed any more proof? Here it is.”

Hera’s mind races, but she takes deep breaths, deciding through an entirely rational logic that now would be the _worst_ time to fall into another panic attack. She’s still shaky from the one earlier, but Doug is shakier, and she needs to be there for him more than she needs someone to be there for _her_.

“Renée, get into the – why are you holding a chair?”

Renée drops the chair. “I needed a weapon,” she replies embarrassedly, but quickly recovers herself and strides over to the tucked-away ventilation shaft, the grate already off in preparation. She ducks down, glances inside, and then pushes her way in.

It’s then that there’s a hammering on the door. It opens immediately after, as Isabel busted the lock, and Hera watches her raise the gun quickly at – Alana and Jacobi.

They hear Alana shout over the alarm, “We’re coming with you,” as Jacobi shoves the door shut again.

“Kepler?” Doug asks, and Jacobi shakes his head, leaning against the closed door. “Is he working with Cutter?”

“We don’t know,” Alana replies honestly, voice still raised. “We can’t _find_ him.”

Doug is next to climb into the air vents, and Hera follows him. She glances back, once, to see Jacobi glance at the door with a sense of diminishing hope, before the vent obscures him from her vision and she’s forced to move forward.

They crawl for what feels like hours. In reality, it’s about ten minutes of exertion, grunting, sticking feet in faces and wincing every time someone hits something that echoes.

Finally, _finally_ , Renée drops down into the tunnel. Hera has been to the tunnels only a couple of times before, but Doug frequents them – _frequented_ them – almost nightly to get out of the facility undetected. They still don’t know why they exist, perhaps a relic from when the facility wasn’t being used to house the last test tube generation, but now isn’t the time for questions like those. Now is the time to run.

So they do. The moment Hera’s feet touch the ground, she stands up from her crouch, and Doug offers her a hand. She takes it. They begin to run together. If nobody could navigate the vents like Renée, then nobody can lead the way out of the tunnels like Doug.

It's dark; none of them have any flashlights. Alana raises a device to cast a small screen glow over the ground directly in front of them, but it’s no match for the oppressive darkness of the underground space. _And to think Doug not only navigated these alone every night, but he also did so completely wasted_. Something tugs at Hera’s conscience – guilt. Regret. The inherent desire to turn back time and pry alcohol from Doug the moment he first tasted it.

She remembers when that was, of course, because she never forgets a thing. They were fourteen and the city mayor was throwing a useless publicity stunt of a party, and they all had to sip champagne as the guests of honour. None of them liked it, but to prove they were more mature, Doug and Kate asked for a second glass each when they finished.

_The beginning of the end_ , she thinks bitterly, but Doug’s hand tightens fractionally in hers and she changes her mind. This is a _new_ beginning, now. One where Doug is sober and Cutter can’t be trusted. One with Alana, which she’s excited about, and Jacobi, which she’s less excited about. One with no home and no destination.

One with freedom like she’s never even dreamed of.

They reach the end of the tunnel. Hera and Doug are at the front, but they wait for everyone else to catch up. Isabel is last, bringing up the rear, and Doug opens the door.

A guard stands on the other side, gun raised, smile grim. Hera freezes, and she’s not the only one. In her periphery, she watches Isabel raise the pistol in her hands, and there’s a gunshot, but from _which_ of them it’s difficult to tell –

The man falls forward, landing heavily on the ground, blood pooling around his head. Ten or so feet behind where he was standing before is Kepler, gun raised, barrel smoking.

“My apologies, Daniel,” he says. “I really should’ve paid more attention to you.”

 

* * *

 

Isabel and Renée take the lead, walking ahead together briskly, leading the group through the shadows in the streets to avoid being noticed. Hera and Doug stand in the middle, both of them pretending they aren’t shaking nearly as much as they are. Warren, Daniel and Alana bring up the rear of the group. They walk in relative silence – even if they had anything to say, they wouldn’t want to bring more attention to themselves than they already have.

The gunfire starts as soon as they spot a vehicle to hack into.

It’s a van, on the other side of the courtyard, empty, unassuming, and perfectly sized for all of them. But just as Renée points it out, the sound of a bullet firing echoes around the courtyard. They all drop down instinctively. One gun becomes two guns. Two guns becomes… more.

“We have to run!” Isabel calls out to the group. “Come on, it’s now or never!”

Whether they wanted to move or not doesn’t matter anymore, as Isabel straightens up, Renée copying her immediately, and they begin to hurry out into the open. Daniel stands up straight to follow, and sees it – Renée, collapsing forward, a bullet cutting clean through her leg.

Isabel catches her. “I’ve got you,” she says, slightly breathless, and even in a scene of chaos they all take a moment to admire the near-effortless way Isabel swings Renée up into her arms and keeps going.

Alana is hit a moment later as a bullet sinks into her shoulder. She cries out, stumbling and grabbing the wound with her hand, and Hera is by her side in a heartbeat, and Daniel himself catches her to keep her moving forward. He looks ahead, and sees Warren in front of him. He sees everything.

It was Alana’s cry that caused Warren to stop, turn around, check on her. He shouldn’t have turned around. He was an _idiot_ for turning around.

Daniel sees the bullet hit his chest, dead centre. Daniel sees Warren’s entire body shudder with the impact. Daniel sees the gun slip from his hand, the widening of his eyes, the tilt of his axis as he begins to fall forward.

In a surprising fit of strength, Hera tugs Alana away towards the van, and Daniel races forward to catch Warren as he topples. They fall down together, knees hitting the ground, Daniel grabbing his shoulders and pushing him upright.

“Warren,” he starts, and he hates how fragile his voice sounds. Blood is already beginning to drip from Warren’s parted lips. “Come on, no, no, _no_ –”

“Daniel,” Warren rasps, and clutches at Daniel’s shirt with a wild desperation.

His heart’s in his throat. He thinks he might throw up. He doesn’t, instead catching Warren’s face in his hands and cradling it gently, lovingly. “Tell me what to do,” he begs him. “Tell me how to save you.”

Warren chuckles, and it’s a thin, wet sound, not the familiar rumble Daniel knows and loves. “Get in the van,” he replies. “And – give Cutter my best.”

He turns his head, then, catching Daniel’s hand in his own where it’s pressed against his cheek. Warren places a bloodied kiss to the inside of Daniel’s palm. Daniel feels his heart break.

Then Warren slumps forward, into Daniel, and suddenly Daniel doesn’t care about the gunfire or the guards or the conspiracy or any of it – Daniel kneels, in the middle of an open courtyard, ready to get torn apart by whatever bullets come his way. He holds Warren, shaking, silent. The fight continues around him. It no longer matters to him.

Eventually, seconds or hours later, he drops Warren, standing up and heading briskly over to the van. Hera seems to have taken control of hacking the internal server, while Doug tends to Alana’s shoulder sloppily, and Isabel attempts to bandage Renée’s leg.

None of them look at him. His shirt is covered in someone else’s blood and the imprint of a kiss is still smudged against the palm of his hand. Daniel curls his fingers around it, glancing at Hera. “We ready to go?”

His voice is eerily steady. Hera blinks at it. “Yeah,” she replies, “just—just about.” She glances at the rest of them – the injured, the grieving – and takes it upon herself to climb into the driver’s seat from where she was standing at the central console. “Where are we heading?”

“Home,” Isabel replies, voice empty of any emotion. “First, we find Sam, Mace, Vic and Kuan –”

“And Dom and Kate,” Doug adds, and Isabel nods sharply at that.

“Right. And Dom and Kate. And then, when they’re safe… we figure out how to bring Cutter down.”

The van pulls away. Hera doesn’t yet know which direction Isabel’s facility is, but right now, she’s clearly just focusing on getting away. Leaving. Leaving Warren’s body on the cobbled stones, leaving all their books and soft bedsheets and alcohol behind, leaving the only home she’s ever known.

_Give Cutter my best_. The words echo in Daniel’s mind, and he leans against the side of the van, staring at the opposite wall. “Sounds like a plan,” he says coldly. “We’re gonna kill the President.”

“We’re gonna kill the President,” Isabel repeats, pressing a kiss to Renée’s forehead as she slumps, “for ever thinking he could lay a hand on us.”

“For _actually_ laying a hand on us,” Renée corrects dully.

“For taking what wasn’t his to take,” Alana says, voice strained – from the pain flaring up in her shoulder or the pain of losing one of her best friends, none of them can tell.

“We’re gonna kill the President,” Hera repeats from the driver’s seat. “Wow. Saying that out loud is – kind of exciting.”

They drive on in silence, after that. Hera eventually finds the location they need to head to. Isabel pulls her shirt off to help stem the flow of blood from Renée’s leg, now only a small trickle. Renée falls asleep against Isabel’s shoulder. At some point, Daniel nudges Doug aside and takes Alana’s first aid into his own hands, working on autopilot. Doug sits beside Hera and they choose to believe they’ll be okay.

Maybe they will. But for the moment, they don’t drive towards being _okay_ – they drive towards Isabel’s friends, towards Dom and Kate, and pray they aren’t too late to help them.

_Okay_ can wait, for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a weird thing to ramble about at the end, but i just wanted to say, it was really liberating writing an actual au in which none of the characters (save cutter, ofc) are actually Bad People. they were all innocent, they were all trying their best, they were all being given more to deal with than they deserved. and it was really exciting for me to write that.
> 
> if you liked it, leave a comment !

**Author's Note:**

> as always, find me @aihera on tumblr


End file.
